Watch The First Plaque NHL was founded in 1917 ; Windsor Hotel

The National Hockey League (NHL) was founded in 1917 following the demise of its predecessor league, the National Hockey Association (NHA). In an effort to remove Eddie Livingstone as owner of the Toronto Blueshirts, a majority of the NHA franchises (the Montreal Canadiens, Montreal Wanderers, Ottawa Senators and Quebec Bulldogs) suspended the NHA and formed the new NHL. Quebec, while a member, did not operate in the NHL for the first two years. Instead the owners of the Toronto Arena Gardens operated a new Toronto franchise. While the NHL was intended as a temporary measure, the continuing dispute with Livingstone led to the four NHA owners meeting and making the suspension of the NHA permanent one year later.

The National Hockey League was formed on November 26, 1917 and the first NHL season began on December 19, 1917.

There were two games held on December 19, 1917.

Game one had the Montreal Wanderers defeat the Toronto Arenas, 10-9 and saw Dave Ritchie of Montreal score the first goal in NHL history, an event that was witnessed by a lowly 700 fans.

In the second game the Montreal Canadiens defeated the Ottawa Senators, 7-4.

The 1917-18 Montreal Wanderers

Founded1911

HistoryToronto Blueshirts 1912–13 -1917–18

Home ArenaArena Gardens

CityToronto, Ontario

ColoursBlue

Owner(s)Percy Quinn 1911–13,

Frank Robinson 1913–15,

Eddie Livingstone 1915–?

Stanley Cups1913–14, 1917–18

The Toronto Hockey Club, known as the Toronto's and the Toronto Blueshirts were a professional National Hockey Association team that played in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The club won the Stanley Cup in 1914, before becoming the center of controversy among st National Hockey Association owners leading to the NHA suspending operations and the owners forming the National Hockey League. The franchise was taken away from its owner in 1917 and the Toronto players played in the NHL in 1917–18 as the Toronto's, winning the Stanley Cup again under temporary ownership. The temporary operators then formed an official franchise for the 1918–19 season that eventually evolved into today's Toronto Maple Leafs.

The Canadiens played their first game on January 5, 1910, coached by Jack Laviolette. Before a sellout crowd of 3,000, they defeated Cobalt 7–6 in overtime.[13] The victory was erased from the history books shortly after, as the CHA collapsed after only two weeks of play, and the NHA chose to restart the season after absorbing the CHA's Ottawa Senators and the Montreal Shamrocks.[14] The Canadiens' first game of the new season was played January 19, a 9–4 loss to the Renfrew Creamery Kings.[15] They lost three more games before finally recording their first victory of the new season on February 7, when they defeated the Haileybury Hockey Club by a score of 9–7.[16] They won only two of their 12 games that season, and finished last in the eight-team league.[17]

George Kennedy, owner of the Club Athlétique Canadien (CAC), claimed rights to the "Canadiens" team name following the season.[18]He settled the dispute by buying the team from O'Brien for $7,500.[19] That same year, the team adopted its now-famous red sweater with a blue stripe across the front. In the middle of the stripe was an elongated red C encompassing a red A to represent the CAC.[20]
The Canadiens reached the playoffs for the first time in 1913–14 when they tied the Toronto Blueshirts for the league lead with 26 points. The two teams played a two-game series for the championship, with the winner based on total goals. Georges Vezina shut out the Blueshirts 2–0 in the first game, but the Canadiens were defeated 6–0 in the second and lost the series.[21] Two years later, in 1915–16, the Canadiens won the NHA championship, the O'Brien Cup, with a 16–7–1 record, three wins better than the second place Senators. The title earned the Canadiens their first berth in the Stanley Cup Finals, where they faced the Portland Rosebuds of the Pacific Coast Hockey Association (PCHA). With the best-of-five series tied at two wins apiece, the deciding game was held at Westmount Arena in Montreal on March 30, 1916. Montreal's Goldie Prodgers scored the winning goal with less than four minutes to play, giving the Canadiens their first Stanley Cup championship.[22]

In 1916, the CAC faced financial difficulty after a January fire destroyed its gymnasium and the Montreal Canadians lacrosse team failed. Kennedy separated the hockey club from the CAC and incorporated it in March 1916 as "Le club de Hockey Canadien". The Canadiens changed their logo to a red "C" interlocked with a white "H".[23] The H in the logo stands for "hockey," though the long standing misconception that it stands for "Habitants" led to the team being nicknamed "the Habs".[24]
The NHA met its demise in the winter of 1917 following several long-running disputes between Blueshirts owner Eddie Livingstone and the league's other four teams over who owned the rights to various players.[25] Kennedy especially disliked Livingstone, and the two nearly came to blows numerous times during league meetings.[26] However, the Canadiens, Wanderers, Senators and Quebec Bulldogs discovered that while they were united in their distaste for Livingstone, the league constitution didn't allow them to simply vote him out. To solve this problem, on November 26 they created a new league, the National Hockey League (NHL), and didn't invite Livingstone to join them. They nominally remained members of the NHA and had enough votes to suspend the league's operations, effectively leaving Livingstone in a one-team league. Kennedy was the dominant force in the new league; he not only owned the Canadiens but had fronted Tommy Gorman the money he'd used to buy the Senators.[27] However, the four teams realized it would be unthinkable not to have a team from Toronto in their league. They also needed a fourth team to balance the schedule after financial difficulties forced the Bulldogs to suspend operations (as it turned out, they wouldn't take the ice until 1919). With this in mind, they granted a "temporary" franchise to the Toronto Arena Company, which eventually evolved into the Canadiens' bitter rivals, the Toronto Maple Leafs.[28]

Georges Vezina played 16 seasons for the Montreal Canadiens between 1910 and 1925. The Vezina Trophy is named after him.